Hyderabad: Beautification works to modernize and set up civic amenities in the the Mir Alam Tank, which is located adjacent to the Hyderabad Nehru Zoological Park at Bahadurpura, have begun by the Greater Hyderabad municipal corporation (GHMC). The historic lake will be redeveloped at an estimated cost of around Rs 40 crore.
Speaking to Siasat.com, GHMC officials said that by the end of this year, the Mir Alam tank will see a transformation with walking and cycling tracks that will span a length of six kilometres. The new works will also include fountains near the lake as well.
More importantly, sewage entering the lake will be diverted to the sewerage treatment plant (STP) through a pipeline. This diversion will stop 90 percent of sewage from entering the tank, claimed GHMC officials. A day earlier, special chief secretary of from the Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) department Arvind Kumar visited Mir Alam Tank on November 3 for an inspection.
The tank has witnessed gross negligence with people throwing heaps of garbage which resulted in the accumulation of debris inside over the years. Polluted water from the tank even killed many precious and endangered species in the Nehru Zoological Park in 2018 and 2019.
Moreover, the encroachments surrounding the Mir Alam tank has put the Nehru Zoological Park at an increased risk of flooding every year, forcing officials to shut down the 99-acre animal safari park for days due to the inundation. The Mir Alam Tank in 1967 was 18.8 lakh square meters but saw a decrease of almost 23% and in 2021 has been reduced to the size of 14.5 lakh square meters.
The satellite images from 1967 and present-day Mir Alam Tank were accessed by The News Minute in collaboration with World Resources Institute’s Raj Bhagat P and Aakash Malik. The shocking images show the extent to which water bodies in Hyderabad have fallen prey to urbanization and as a result have slowly decreased in size over the years.
